Home Energy Briefs Help Consumers Save Money
Rocky Mountain Institute announces the release of its updated Home Energy Briefs, a series of nine publications that provide energy and money-saving tips for homeowners. The series includes Briefs on lighting, space cooling and heating, water heating, cleaning appliances, electronics, kitchen appliances, the building envelope, and whole system design.
Wave Energy Device Nears Deployment
After years of planning and development, the wave energy approach proposed by the Australia-based Energetech is about to be tested at a full-scale level in the ocean for the first time. After being fabricated the main structural component of the device arrived at Port Kembla, Australia on board a specially-designed heavy lift vessel.
Ethanol to Hydrogen, A Double Duty Fuel
Ethanol is commonly touted as an alternative fuel suitable for any vehicle. Researchers from the Gas Technology Institute (GTI) have produced hydrogen from the corn-based product, however, and that could shift ethanol into a whole new fuel market.
Where's The Sustainability?
Maui Community College is a microcosm of Maui society. At last, it's about to show the rest of the island the way to a world of sustainability. MCC students and professors know the power of the sun. In fact, students are actually installing ecological equipment on roofs such as the faculty hale that houses the social sciences faculty, as well as the Hawaii Institute for Human Rights.
Canary Islands Display Plumes of PV Power
Sometimes, the best way to reach a large goal is to break it into small parts. On the Canary Island chain, the Tenerife Island Council and Institute of Renewable Energies have plans for a 15 MW solar photovoltaic array. For the first stage of the grid-connected PV facility, which will hopefully grow beyond the 15 MW, the organizations have proposed to develop 150 individual fields of 100 kW each and sell the ownership of each field to private investors.
Details provided on MCC windmill plan
A 210-foot-high wind turbine planned for the west side of Maui Community College's campus could generate 1.3 megawatts or enough power for 250 homes, participants in an informational meeting learned. The $2.6 million project, to be underwritten with private investment funds and backed by MCC and Hawaii Pacific Wind, would reduce the college's power bills and become a learning tool for its renewable energy studies program. The college's electricity bill totaled more than $1 million last year, said MCC Chancellor Clyde Sakamoto, who added that the power-generating windmill could yield a substantial savings for the school.
Future of Renewable Energy is Now
Progress on renewable energy worldwide has come from government policies and funding in many nations - and visionary companies concerned not just with the next quarter, but the next quarter of a century. BP, the world's second-largest oil company, once known as British Petroleum, BP now advertises itself as "Beyond Petroleum." It was the first big oil company to publicly acknowledge the risks of climate change, and is investing heavily in solar, wind, biomass and hydrogen.
"Our long-term future as a company depends on being about to produce and supply energy in a sustainable way," explained John Mogford, BP's group vice president for gas, power and renewables. "Our short-term future depends on winning trust by addressing the concern of customers, shareholders and all those with whom we do business."
Kaheawa wind energy project reports given to the Council
Energy and Economic Development Committee meeting report from August 30, 2004
Resurgent interest noted in wind power
Wind power isn't becalmed any more. There is a lot of new interest in this alternative method of power generation from Hawaii to Europe.
Colorado Renewable Energy in the Voters' Hands
In November, Colorado's 4.3 million citizens will have the opportunity to vote on Amendment 37, a renewable energy portfolio standard. The Amendment will be the first renewable energy portfolio standard in the nation to be put directly before voters rather than processed through a state's legislature.
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Ethanol fuel mix to be required in 2006
New state rules approved yesterday will have most Hawai'i drivers filling their tanks with a mixture of gasoline and sugar-cane alcohol, or ethanol, by early 2006. That works out to about 35 million gallons of ethanol each year, based on current gasoline use. The ethanol would be produced in Hawai'i, much of it from locally grown cane products available at the state's two remaining sugar firms - Alexander & Baldwin's HC&S plantation on Maui and the Gay & Robinson plantation on Kaua'i.
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Warming up to solar power
Higher energy costs from rising oil prices have resulted in a renewed focus on the use of alternatives such as solar energy. Hawai'i is the solar water heating capital of the country, with half of the nation's homes with these systems in the Islands. In December, HECO's solar water heating program received an outstanding achievement award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the second such recognition in a row.
New laws promote ethanol fuel
Gov. Linda Lingle has signed into law two bills designed to encourage the production of ethanol in the state.
Community Wind Power Concept May Be REACHING 'Tipping Point' In U.S.
"Community wind" projects - locally-owned wind plants with one or more utility-scale turbines - may be reaching a "tipping point" beyond which they will spread more widely in the U.S., according to a new report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
New law to require use of renewable energy
Today, about 7 percent of the state's energy needs are met by renewable resources. At least 20 percent of a utility's electricity sales must be from renewable energy sources by 2020 under the "20/20 bill" signed by Gov. Linda Lingle. The act is designed to reduce the state's dependence on foreign-produced oil. A legislative study found that Hawai'i imports $2 billion to $3 billion worth of oil a year.
Isle mayors urge less focus on cars
Ensuring that residents don't have to use their cars just to get to a grocery store or a movie would do more to ease traffic congestion than building more roads or widening highways, island mayors said yesterday. They urged better community planning to keep offices, essential shopping and entertainment centers nearer homes. "If we focus on improving infrastructure -- roads, highways -- I think we are doomed for failure. ... We will never catch up," Big Island Mayor Harry Kim said.
Plans for bike path put on hold
The county has put the brakes on plans for a two-lane bike path parallel to Baldwin Avenue that the community had praised as a solution to save the shower trees along the road while offering a safe alternative for bicyclists who now must deal with hair-raising twists and turns.
Dave DeLeon, executive assistant to Mayor Alan Arakawa and a longtime bicycling enthusiast, said that there too many questions about the practicality of a separate bike path to allow spending millions of dollars on it without further review.
Island uses wind, hydrogen to go green
Norwegian experiment aims to solve reliability issue
A windblown island off Norway is being used to test ways of overcoming a big drawback of alternative energy: How to store it.
Further information and application form:
www.energyglobe.info
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Renewable energy co-ops give power to the people
The development of renewable energy co-ops in Hawaii will contribute to the localization of the energy industry. This is tremendously exciting because clean technologies, appropriate for development in Hawaii, are emerging as a multibillion-dollar growth sector that will create investment opportunities and jobs, helping to ensure Hawaii's economically dynamic and environmentally sustainable future.
Committee to hear proposed energy-efficient building codes
Proposed new energy-efficient building codes will be introduced before the Maui County Council's Energy and Economic Development Committee.
Search on for fuel crops
Despite America's obesity epidemic, the supply of used frying oil, at least on Maui, is running short. Therefore, Pacific Biodiesel Inc. jumped at the chance to be a part of Maui Pine's diversification.
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Lingle, legislators making strong push for renewable energy
While lawmakers have taken steps in the past to encourage the use and development of so-called renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and wave power, the effort has picked up momentum this year. In her State of the State address, Gov. Linda Lingle pledged to follow up on a 2002 campaign promise to mandate that 20 percent of all electricity sold in the year 2020 come from renewable sources. Whether the state can reach that goal, obviously, remains to be seen, but lawmakers and the Lingle administration are taking steps now to try and see it through.
Council divided on right route for public transportation
A plan by Council Member Charmaine Tavares would add more than $154,000 to the county Department of Transportation's public transit program. But Budget and Finance Committee Chairman Riki Hokama has proposed reducing the program's funding by about $148,000. The program currently receives $270,000 in county funds.
Car dealer has Maui's biggest solar power system
Island Dodge, a dealership in Kahului, is expanding its solar power system to be a 52.2 kilowatt array, the largest solar electric system on Maui.
Eco-efficiency and Beyond
Thinking about sustainable production and services in a globalised world
Eco-efficiency - a term first proposed by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development in 1992 - is a management approach that allows businesses to carry out environmental protection measures from a market-oriented point of view, with the aim of illustrating that ecology and the economy do not need to be a contradiction. Indeed, eco-efficiency has been portrayed as a win-win - for both business and the environment.
A Short Course on Human Exposure to Electromagnetic Fields
www.wessex.ac.uk/programmes/humanex04.htm
Driving the Bio-Beetle makes the world a better place
Indigenous peoples around the world from Ogoni in Africa to the Gwichin in Alaska are forced to defend their way of living in harmony with nature because people halfway around the world want to drive oil-hungry cars. With the Bio-Beetle, it's now possible to drive and not fight the principles of democracy. We can drive around Maui watching waterfalls spilling into freshwater pools without worrying about displacing indigenous people or polluting nature. The years of driving a golf cart to save the planet in the name of a car are gone.
The power of fuel alternatives
One of the buses on the flight line at Hickam Air Force Base has a specialized power plant - a big electric motor powered by a bank of batteries, which in turn are charged by a hydrogen fuel cell. It is a technology that works well for the duties of the bus, which include a lot of short-distance, stop-and-go driving during a long working day.
Statewide Transportation Improvement Program
Fiscal Years 2004 Thru 2006 Here is the prioritization of state highway projects for the next 3 years. (Maui County is on Pages 15 to 19.)
http://www.hawaii.gov/dot/stp/stip/fy04-06-stip-approved.pdf
Hybrid cars still come with sizable tax break
Hybrid vehicles combine an electric motor with a gasoline engine to deliver above-average gas mileage. Toyota and Honda sell hybrids now, and Ford and General Motors plan to introduce their own versions during the next three years. Existing models get 47 to 60 miles per gallon, depending on where you're driving. Toyota says you can drive its 2004 Prius from Detroit to Washington on a single tank of gas.
Utilities should be below the ground in future, mayor says
Underground utilities could be the wave of Maui's future if Mayor Alan Arakawa has anything to say about it. In opposing a request by West Maui developers to have Maui Electric Co. replace a row of wooden utility lines with steel poles, Arakawa said Tuesday that his preference for all future proposals would be to go underground whenever possible.
Maui Solar Roofs Initiative Program – (downloadable as a PDF file)
The Solar Water Heater Project is meant to increase the use of renewable energy in Maui County by increasing the number of solar water heating systems installed in Maui County residences. The project involves grants in the amount of $250,000 in 2003 and $100,000 in 2004 to Maui Electric Company to establish a revolving fund to provide qualified homeowners with zero-interest loans to help finance the installation of solar water heating systems.
Off-the-grid lots could provide answer for affordable housing
The practice of a landowner creating lots and selling them outright has matured into a concept whereby the landowner either sells the land outright to a developer or remains in partnership with a developer to subdivide the land. Once the land is subdivided, the developer then controls the entire build-out and ends up selling finished homes. The net result is a selling price out of reach of ordinary hardworking families.
Lovins Explodes '20 Hydrogen Myths'
The Rocky Mountain Institute, a policy organization based in Snowmass, Colo., has released a detailed, peer-reviewed paper by noted energy analyst Amory Lovins providing the facts on "Twenty Hydrogen Myths" and, in the process, background for Lovins's view that a hydrogen economy can be built soon without massive expense. The paper outlines a systematic, step-by-step process for transforming the U.S. and global energy economy to a hydrogen base, with a focus on moving through each phase in a way that is technologically feasible and cost-effective.
Harness Hawai'i's wave power
A wave buoy soon will be tested at Marine Corps Base Hawai'i at Kane'ohe. Hawai'i should encourage other companies to test their technologies in Hawaiian waters as well, in order to select the leading wave technologies to power our Islands.
 Solar-powered electric bikes
The bikes can go "up to 30 miles per hour, create no pollution, are totally silent, can go up any hill, are simple to repair, and the batteries can be recharged with energy from two things we have an abundance of here on Maui - sun and wind," inventor Randy Draper explained
Oil, Hydrogen, and Hawaii
The stock market tanked today because OPEC decided it could not tolerate $25 oil, and cut production by 900,000 barrels per day. The immediate reason given for OPEC's action was a recent prediction by the Iraqi oil industry that it's production will reach prewar levels by the first quarter of 2004. The core problem here is not only American dependence on oil and gas as its primary energy source, but world dependence on oil -- that, coupled with OPEC's control of production, and therefore prices.
Solar power becoming more affordable
Global shipments of solar panels reached 400 megawatts in 2001, double the number just a couple of years earlier despite not much price incentive - the price of a photovoltaic module dropped 1 percent from 2000 to 2001, from $3.46 to $3.42 per watt. But the industry is changing. Residential users became bigger buyers of solar systems than industry, for the first time in 2001. And there are new technologies that promise to change the numbers dramatically.
HECO's renewable energy subsidiary seeks project proposals
Renewable Hawaii, Inc., the renewable energy subsidiary of Hawaiian Electric Company has issued a Renewable Energy Request for Project Proposals for the islands of Maui, Molokai and Lanai. Proposals are due by December 4, 2003 with selection of accepted bids planned for April 1, 2004. With initial approval to invest up to $10 million in renewable energy generation projects, Renewable Hawaii aims to partner with developers to help increase the total renewable energy projects connected to the electrical grid.
Orion Energy Report
If you want to understand how difficult it will be for our society to make the transition away from fossil fuel addiction, consider one small report that slipped out of the Department of Energy in early December of last year. It found that, despite melting poles and rising sea levels, the overall consumption of renewable energy in America fell twelve percent in 2001.
Green-waste conversion to fuel has UH seeing green
The Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, a research unit of the UH School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, is building a commercial-scale demonstration reactor at UH-Manoa to take all of its green waste on campus and manufacture charcoal. UH soon could be making a profit of $100,000 a year by operating the reactor for one eight-hour day a week, which is the capacity of waste on campus.
New school built on sustainable design
Punahou School hopes to set a new gold standard with the construction of its new Case Middle School. "We're doing it as a learning institution because it's the right thing to do and to make it a learning tool, too," said Steve Piper, director of the the school's physical plant.
 Kahului Harbor Power Plant
One of the oldest and dirtiest diesel-burning generators in America, and it's directly upwind of Kahukui and Wailuku.
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Wind power set to become world's leading energy source
Wind power is now a viable, robust, fast-growing industry. Cheap electricity from wind makes it economical to electrolyze water and produce hydrogen. Hydrogen is the fuel of choice for the highly efficient fuel cells that will be used widely in the future to power motor vehicles and to supply electricity, heating, and cooling for buildings. Hydrogen also offers a way of storing wind energy and of transporting it efficiently by pipeline or in liquefied form by ship.
Catching the wave
The Navy hopes to float Wave Energy Conversion buoys off the Marine Corps Base Hawai'i to test whether the electricity generated by wave power is cost-effective. Each buoy is expected to produce about 20 kilowatts.
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Berkeley Goes Biodiesel
The City of Berkeley celebrated a milestone today as officials announced the city has transitioned to 100 percent biodiesel (B100) in its diesel vehicles. Berkeley is the first city of its size in the US to switch to pure biodiesel, a fuel made from renewable resources like fat or vegetable oil. (PDF file)
Hydrogen is no longer an obscure idea
With enough public and governmental support, Hawai’i could find itself at the forefront of the coming hydrogen age.
Rocky Mountain Institute report links U.S. energy security to efficiency
The report's author, physicist Amory B. Lovins, said: "The Iraq war, the economic downturn, and the ongoing Congressional energy policy debate make this a ripe time to refocus attention on reducing America's energy vulnerability by increasing her energy efficiency. Efficiency doesn't require sacrifice, it makes money, it makes sense, and it's the fastest, most powerful way we know to shift to energy sources that can't be cut off."
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